The disclosure relates to an application system for applying a coating agent to a component, in particular for applying a sealant to a motor vehicle bodywork component.
For the sealing of motor vehicle bodywork components, PVC plastisols (PVC: polyvinyl chloride) are normally used. The application of these PVC plastisols is carried out with an applicator, with which different spraying techniques can be used.
In order to achieve a good coating quality, it is important that the material temperature is as constant as possible. For this purpose, in the background art, tempering apparatuses are used which control the material temperature of the PVC plastisols to a pre-determined target value which for most PVC plastisols is below +30° C., so that the PVC plastisols to be applied must typically be cooled. It should be mentioned here that, following their tempering, the tempered PVC plastisols must also pass through a coating agent line up to the relevant applicator, so that, for various reasons, the temperature of the PVC plastisols at the applicator can deviate from the pre-determined target value.
First, the ambient temperature of the coating agent line deviates more or less strongly from the pre-determined target value, which leads to a corresponding heating or cooling of the coating agent in the coating agent line. Thus, in summer, the ambient temperatures can be, for example, +40° C., which leads to corresponding heating of the coating agent in the coating agent line. Therefore, the actual temperature of the applied coating agent varies depending on the respective ambient temperature, which may relate to, e.g., the difference between day and night and also to the difference between summer and winter.
Second, in known application systems, the material flow is usually not continuous. Thus, for example, the coating agent might stand still in the coating agent line between the coating of two successive motor vehicle bodywork components, and then, in such circumstances, the standing coating agent may relatively quickly reach the ambient temperature.
In order to prevent such a temperature change within the coating agent line due to the ambient temperature deviating from the target temperature, it is known from the prior art to isolate the coating agent line thermally, although this solves the problem only partially.
Reference is also made, with regard to the prior art, to DE 10 2010 041 706 A1 and DE 10 2008 000 451 A1 and DE 697 36 098 T2. These publications do not, however, relate do the field of coating technology, but describe paper processing systems.